


Laid Bare

by cecilantro



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 16:54:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14856584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilantro/pseuds/cecilantro
Summary: “Mollymauk.” Caleb says, quiet and tired, “You cannot just drop into bed with me at the best of times.Without clothesis not the best of times.”





	Laid Bare

**Author's Note:**

> tomorrow is the last daily fic remember yall. sorry.

Caleb has been hovering on the precipice of sleep for an hour and a half, too exhausted to cross that line and irritated by it, but still close enough that the word is warm and foggy and the darkness is nice. His brain is too sluggish to do much other than run through the elaborate stories and ideas and theories he uses to keep his mistakes of the day at bay, so he’s leaning hard into it.   
The bed he’s lying on  _ diiiips _ , the weight of a person, too heavy to be Nott. He doesn’t mind Nott sleeping with him. She’s comforting, actually. But this is too heavy to be Nott.   
His eyes flicker open, the dim light of the lamp they keep lit through the night casts a bright orange shadow over the back of Mollymauk as he settles into bed beside Caleb. Stark fucking naked and, by the smell and the clumsiness of his actions, very very drunk.   
“Mollymauk.” Caleb says, quiet and tired, “You cannot just drop into bed with me at the best of times.  _ Without clothes _ is not the best of times.”   
Molly’s eyes open up again and he smiles, distant,   
“Sorry, sorry. Don’t kick me out?”   
Caleb sighs as he pulls his corner of the blanket back and wraps it over Molly. Wizard warmth means he doesn’t really need it, but it’s a comforting weight and he’s a little peeved that he’s giving it up. Molly is worth it, he supposes.   
“Thank you.” Molly closes his eyes again, and Caleb sighs a little. Follows suite.   
“What’s wrong with your own bed?”   
“Doesn’t have you in it.” Caleb hears Molly’s smile and curses the tiefling’s wickedly fast tongue, even when he’s hammered or high.    
“What is the  _ real _ reason, Mollymauk.” he hopes his voice is more stable than his heart rate. Molly shuffles around on the other side of the bed before he answers, and Caleb feels the blanket settle back over him, a hand on his waist.   
“Fjord locked me out because Beau and I got far too into strip poker.”   
Caleb is silent as he adjusts to Molly’s hand on him, controls, captures his heart rate and slows it with care.   
“These are things we should discuss in the morning, then. Are you warm enough?”   
“I could be better.” Molly admits, “Are you sure it’s okay for me to stay here?”   
And there’s the concern so characteristic of Mollymauk, and Caleb sighs as he wriggles a little closer, winds an arm over Molly’s hip. It’s a controlled decision, he tells himself, not an emotional one. If Molly gets too cold over the night, he might get ill, and that puts the party at a hell of a disadvantage.   
“It’s… fine, Mollymauk. You can get closer.”   
Molly does, comes up to him and snuggles his way under Caleb’s chin, winds his way around Caleb, and lets the wizard do exactly the same for him. Once they’re all entwined, Caleb feels Molly hum.   
“You’re very warm.”   
Caleb smiles at that, chastises himself for it,   
“Go to sleep.We will deal with you in the morning.”   
Molly needs no more persuading. Exhaustion and alcohol and warmth crest up and cascade down, sweeping him away. Caleb, clinging to a new lifeline, lets himself drop over the precipice at long fucking last.

 

When he wakes up wound around Molly, it takes a moment for it all to come back to him, and he briefly thinks that he’s made a big mistake.   
And then it rushes in, and he knows he’s made a  _ terrible _ mistake.   
“Oh, don’t panic,” Molly says, apparently awake, “Please.”   
He draws back, not in a scramble the way that Caleb thinks he would if he were in Molly’s shoes, but languid enough that it settles Caleb’s nerves. He slips out of bed, and gives Caleb that unexpected,  _ terrible _ eyeful of purple ass.   
“Godsdammit, Mollymauk.” Caleb groans and turns over, Molly chuckles warmly for him,   
“Not the first time you’ve seen me naked, Caleb, won’t be the last. Throw me the blanket, at least?”   
Caleb balls it up one-handed and tosses it over his shoulder, hears it hit Molly’s back, but not the bed.   
So he turns over, to find Molly draping the blanket around his shoulders with his tail, and he turns, grinning brightly, and draws it closed around him just in time to save Caleb from a second eyeful.   
“Much obliged.” Molly leans on one knee onto the bed and curves over to kiss Caleb’s forehead, “Glad you’re here, Caleb.”   
Caleb doesn’t reply, he closes his eyes again so that he can focus on fighting away the tears he knows are burning through. It’s not hard to make him sob, with the right words, anything that implies he’s wanted and trusted, really. He feels himself trembling and though he begs Molly not notice, of course, he will.   
There’s a dip in the bed beside him again, as Molly crawls back up and covers them both with the blanket again, wordless, he pulls Caleb in toward him and cuddles.   
This decision isn’t logical, Caleb knows, as he wraps an arm over Molly, too. He can feel the raised lines of his scars under his fingers as he brushes, and he lets himself loose from self-imposed rules.   
“Is this a good cry, or a bad cry?” Molly asks from somewhere above him, and Caleb laughs a little bit.   
“I think you could call it good.”   
“Maybe we should stay here for a bit then.” Molly kisses the top of Caleb’s head and squishes him a little closer. 

 

When they eventually pry apart and head down into the tavern of the inn they’ve taken residence in, only Jester and Yasha are awake. And they know that Yasha is awake, because Caleb had to slip quietly into her room to borrow a spare pair of her pants for Molly, they’re too big for him but it’s better than nothing. He’s wearing Yasha’s pants, Caleb’s jacket, and nothing else, his own clothes taken by Fjord as  _ punishment _ for his crimes against eyes. Fjord’s eyes. The crime being Molly’s ass, apparently.   
“Not that you seem to agree.” Molly had smirked to Caleb as he pulled himself into the borrowed clothes, and Caleb had rolled his eyes, pulling his shirt over his head,   
“I wouldn’t say that your nudity is a crime against eyes by any description of that phrase.” He’d answered, cryptic, picked up his coat from the floor and handed it to Molly.   
“Is that your roundabout way of telling me that you like it?” Molly had teased him. Caleb had left without giving himself a chance to reply, come downstairs red-faced and sat beside Jester.   
“Are you okay, Caleb? You’re  _ really _ warm. Like, warmer than usual!”   
She presses the back of a cool hand to his forehead, and he hums noncommittally as he presses into her touch.    
“And you are rather cold,  _ ja _ , I have done some… hm… exercise this morning, the heat is uncomfortable to say the least.”   
Jester sandwiches his face between her palms, and he somehow wishes that he didn’t enjoy the cool touch so much. But she’s seeping the heat of his embarrassment from him, and when Molly comes down the stairs behind him, he gives a pleased hum.   
“Starting the fun without me, hm?” he says lightly, sits next to Caleb and leans in, “I’m jealous.”   
He’s fluid over Caleb’s shoulder, and Jester lets go and sits up, straight up, her tail bristling like Frumpkin’s fur might.   
“Oh! Molly, your clothes…”   
“‘Fraid I lost them after strip poker last night.” He turns and folds his arms on Caleb’s shoulder, so that he can rest his chin on his hands and smile at Jester.   
“You were  _ naked _ all night?” She says, and gasps, “ _ Did you sleep in the street? _ ”   
“Oh, goodness, no, even I’m not that confident.”   
“Where did you sleep, then?” Jester cocks her head, “I know Fjord locked you out, and I stayed with Yasha…”   
Yasha’s head drops quickly to her drink, cheeks flushed pink as Molly looks over to her in pride and shock. Jester’s eyes come back to Molly. To the coat. To Caleb. And she puts the pieces together in almost the right order,   
“Oh!” She exclaims, “Exercise, Caleb, you sly dog! So was it just a casual fuck, or are you two…” She mimes kissing with her fingers, and Molly laughs briefly, kisses Caleb’s cheek.   
“Ah, neither?”   
“W- We, uh, we didn’t-” Caleb’s panic levels rise, and Molly snakes his tail around to pull Jester’s hand back to his cheek   
“I was  _ very _ drunk, Jester.” Molly offers, as way of explanation, and Jester nods,   
“Ah. Right.  _ Will  _ you, though?”   
Caleb shrugs, and Molly follows a moment later.   
“We’ll see.”


End file.
